


Now look at us, we're ancient

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bloodplay, Casual Sex, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:59:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing out of Derek's mouth is, "You shouldn't wander off alone."</p><p>The first thing Stiles says is, "Take off your pants," and that about sums up their relationship, now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now look at us, we're ancient

That first time, even though Stiles is the one to initiate it, crowd into Derek’s body with intent to kiss him soft and light and fleeting, Derek turns it possessive, powerful, hungrier than Stiles has let himself feel in a while.

Later, Derek says he couldn’t stand it, thinking Stiles would just kiss him and leave, he had to--he needed to make it permanent, somehow. Because it meant something. Derek always had a way of devastating Stiles with as few words as possible, using his teeth to wrench moans out of him when he sucks at the crease of Stiles’s thigh.

Derek’s hair is greasy with gel but his hands are soft, uncallused, steady as they hold on. Stiles is seventeen in two weeks, a high school cliché with his shirt rucked up in his armpits, jeans and underwear pulled down around his ankles so the leather of Derek’s couch rubs against his ass. Derek has a hand wrapped about Stiles’s cock, but he leans in for another kiss, says, “We can--what do you want?”

Stiles clears his throat. “Whatever you want, this is--fine, it’s good.”

Derek nods, disappointed, maybe, a split second of something Stiles can’t make out before they’re kissing again, Derek stroking him until he’s aching with the need to come, breathing so harsh and heavy, hands pushing under Derek’s t-shirt in frustration. When his orgasm hits it takes everything out of him, he has to break the kiss to breathe while his come dries on his stomach. The sight of Derek bending to lick it up, flat of his tongue dragging across the muscles and trail of hair, the head of Stiles’s softening cock to catch the last few drops is more than Stiles knows how to take.

His whole body clenches, too spent to be aroused but trying. Derek meets his eyes, licks a drop of spunk from his own chin before Stiles pulls him into another kiss, open mouthed. He starts to pull off Derek’s clothes, desperate like when he walked into the loft twenty minutes ago with all the false bravado he could muster before he lost his nerve. He is--was--a virgin, but he knows what he wants, getting sick of waiting for Derek to make the first move, give a sign that Stiles wasn’t completely delusional about what was going on between them.

Derek pulls back before Stiles gets his shirt off. “You can take a shower here, if you like.” His tone is forced casual, sitting back on his heels.

“Yeah, but I was going--don’t you want me to--”

“It’s fine,” Derek cuts him off. He’s looking at the spot on Stiles’s chest he had his teeth in. Stiles doesn’t want--he’s new to this, hasn’t had time to figure out how Derek’s different when sex is involved, what it means when he grabs onto Stiles’s fingers after but won’t look him in the eyes, looks away like he’s ashamed of what they just did, but Stiles is a fast learner and Derek’s secrets never stayed that way for long.

Derek straightens, hand out to pull Stiles up on shaking legs. It feels like a betrayal, like a dirty secret, to wash away the evidence so soon after it happened, makes do with the marks that don’t fade so easily.

When he gets downstairs, Derek is in his bed, obscured by a blanket, asleep or pretending, Stiles doesn’t check.

*

They don’t see each other for something like eight days, seven nights of Stiles stroking himself to sleep over the memory of Derek’s hands on him, the claustrophobic heat of his body, the promise of Derek’s mouth.

He gets a call from Lydia about a dead body, a case, she calls it, like they’re running a detective agency now, something about unnatural poisoning, however natural poisoning can be. A text comes from Kira about movies, sometime, a casual group thing that she can pick him up for.

She’s taken an interest in him that has more to do with what Lydia calls him filling out, wider shoulders, muscle mass from playing first line, the puppy fat he's stripped himself of, but all he sees when he looks in the mirror are the shadows under his eyes, cheeks caved in around the bones, collarbones standing out in a way that makes him self-conscious, gaunt from all the meals he skips and weeks of hallucinations that have him questioning how much of himself is there, real. He only feels the places Derek’s touched him, pressed his fingers and tongue to.

He thinks about using Kira, touching the small of her back when Derek’s watching, but he can’t remember if it’s something he’d be okay doing a year ago without the darkness seeping through his veins and the angelhair cracks in his skin, or if it’s a side effect, and anyway, Kira and Derek are never in the same room together, scared of each other, maybe, or just gravitating in different orbits.

*

The next pack meeting is a Thursday night, Scott’s kitchen cluttered with chairs and only one of them used. Isaac’s only there for Scott and Allison’s only there for Isaac, their discomfort forcing them into a unit of co-dependency no one else has the time for. Lydia called the meeting but she bails after ten minutes, flips her hair over her shoulder as she goes, stomps pointedly on Stiles’s foot.

Isaac leans over the iPad. “Am-fee-benna?”

“Amphisbaena,” Allison corrects.

Stiles snorts. “You really think a two-headed snake chicken is running around poisoning people?”

Allison glares, a look made less effective since he hallucinated her peeling her own face off like a mask, before that, even, when she gave away the ability to influence Scott or make him happy.

Cora isn’t there either, but she's been absent lately, they haven’t spoken since Stiles walked into a school supply closet to find her face between Lydia’s legs. His friends have formed a pattern of unreliability where sex is concerned.

That just leaves Derek, who’s standing in the doorway at the edge of the circle. He once said he never really learned how to fit in, and Stiles is getting that now. When he catches Derek’s gaze, he sinks lower in his chair, opens his knees wider, thinks a stream of sex and kissing and sucking and hisses so clearly that Derek has to hear it, has to know, would push Stiles against a door again if he heard it, and Stiles would palm Derek’s cock through his jeans, wrestle them down, get on his knees just as easily as Derek did for him. He thought it might die down, after a year of wanting someone so emotionally unavailable, but he picks at it like a rash, flaring red and angry and always, always there.

Derek clears his throat, a flush visible on his cheeks that sends a thrill of victory straight to Stiles’s ego. “Djinn, sounds like. They live in caves, abandoned buildings, dark, dank places.” He looks like he’s ready to bolt up until Allison and Scott confirm and Scott calls Derek over, asks him to run the borders while they head into the preserve, make sure no one’s getting murdered. It gives Stiles an extra minute to situate himself in a position to catch Derek before he leaves. It’s desperate and pathetic, practically throwing himself at Derek, and he’s not proud of himself but neither was proud when he was taking his time, respecting Derek’s boundaries, waiting for nothing to happen.

Scott joins Allison and Isaac outside and Derek stops when he catches sight of Stiles leaning in the doorway he just vacated. Panic flits across his face before he stalks forward.

“Need some company?” Stiles asks. He’s already half-hard at just watching Derek trying to control himself, crossing his arms across his chest like he needs the protection.

“Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

Stiles snorts again. “No need to parent me, Derek. Do you tell Scott to mind his bedtime, or is that, like, insubordination?”

Derek presses his lips into a thin line. “You’re just going to be distracting,” he says, and yeah, obviously, Stiles has perfected the art of distraction, but only now he gets to challenge himself, tries not to rock on the balls of his feet just because Derek admitted Stiles _gets_ to him.

Stiles makes a promise that he won’t be, and breaks it as soon as Derek parks the car at the edge of the preserve after confirming that the djinn isn’t currently active, bites into Derek's mouth because he doesn’t give a shit if Mrs Lauderton’s bins are knocked over or if the nest of meth heads downtown has cleared out overnight. He wants Derek on him, gets hands and mouth and sweat-stale skin, the sharp pain of Derek’s teeth on his earlobe, his hands undoing the clasp of Derek’s jeans to push them down as he grabs his ass for leverage to rock against.

Derek groans when Stiles gets a hand on him, mouth dropping open, thrusting into the grip hand enough to knock Stiles’s head against the door handle, apologies falling out of his mouth as he backs away, eyes wide and wild. Stiles laughs despite the pain, hands on Derek’s shoulders to pull him in closer, giddy with arousal, frantic with the need to feel everything.

Derek ends up draped over him, twisted half in the foot well, breath hot on Stiles’s skin as he tracks down his stomach until his mouth slides over Stiles’s cock, a shock to the system that makes him gasp out loud.

“Fuck, I--can I touch you?” Stiles forces his head forward so he can look, watch Derek mouth sloppily at his cock like he’s never given a blowjob before, like he’s new. Derek meets his gaze, nods as best he can before he gets back to work, leaning into the palm Stiles rests against the side of his face, moaning in a way that sends vibrations through Stiles’s cock.

Stiles comes quickly but he’s prepared this time, pulls Derek into his lap before he can put his guard back up, make some excuse to leave, Derek’s legs bracketing his hips in a van built to seat seven people that doesn’t accommodate sex in the passenger seat.

Derek’s bottom lip is plump and red where Stiles traces it with his thumb, watching Derek’s eyes go wide before he sucks it into his mouth. Stiles hisses, says, “Yeah, okay, your turn,” and Derek kneels up enough to shuck his jeans down, lifts up his arms for Stiles to pull his shirt off, matching Stiles’s open mouth stare with his own, pretence dropped, bravado stripped away.

It was--Derek wasn’t supposed to look so raw. Stiles could’ve lived his whole life without knowing what Derek looks like so vulnerable and sex-ruined. It fucks with his view of things, his ability to walk away without anyone getting hurt.

Stiles pushes it down by kissing Derek again before he can smell the regret, finds Derek’s cock, stroking him until he’s shaking, Derek saying, “okay, okay” until they both stop talking.

*

Stiles stays up nights studying, reads through the bestiary, cooks dinner for his dad, browses potential college programs that he erases from his history as soon as he closes the tab. It’s a quiet fall that tests his fortitude, his ability to stay focused with the pent-up frenetic energy he isn’t using to keep himself alive. He gets a casual job at the local pizza chain, has to wear a hair net but gets to take home forgotten orders, sometimes. He wakes up in the forest, no memory after passing out on his bed, freezing in a t-shirt and jeans, barefoot, scratches all over his arms. The walk back to the main road is long and uneventful. Scott’s waiting for him there, leaning against Melissa's car, face cast in the glow of his phone as his fingers scrabble across the keypad.

“You okay, man?” He’s the same mix of exhaustion and concern he’s always carried around like dead weight.

Stiles nods. “How long was I gone?”

“An hour, maybe more. Your dad’s got half the force out looking for you.”

"Perks of being the Sheriff's son," Stiles says.

When they get back to the house, Scott turns the engine off. "Allison's worried about you," he says, eyebrows drawn together.

"Great," Stiles replies, bitter, about to say he doesn't need her concern, or Scott's either, he has the way Derek gasps his name, crushes it between his teeth when Stiles pushes it back into Derek's mouth with his tongue.

Scott fiddles with the keys. "We haven't really talked about the stuff that's been going on, what's been happening since--the hallucinations--"

Stiles feels numb all over, like he never quite recovered from the ice bath. They almost died and it pales in comparison to the hole in his chest, the parts of his personality he can't remember anymore, wouldn't know they were gone if it wasn't for the way Scott looks at him, like he's _wrong_ , and the moments of lucidity that contrast how unhinged he is, dirt under his fingernails, inhaling dead leaves and ash under the night sky, aching.

He sighs. "I just hiked five miles through the woods, I’m not doing this now. We'll talk, yeah? Promise, Scotty."

Scott seems satisfied, starts the engine as soon as Stiles gets out, beeping as he turns out of the drive.

Stiles sends a text, gets in the door, spends ten minutes reassuring his dad nothing happened, he's fine, just some cuts and scrapes, before he escapes into his bedroom where Derek's already waiting.

The first thing out of Derek's mouth is, "You shouldn't wander off alone."

The first thing Stiles says is, "Take off your pants," and that about sums up their relationship, now.

Derek huffs, leans against the desk with his ankles and arms crossed. "I'm not doing anything with your father downstairs. Or while he's across the hall. Or at all, actually."

Stiles pretends to pout. "Does this mean you're breaking up with me?"

Derek freezes, his body so still and tense he could've turned to stone, and Stiles scoffs. "Relax, dude, save the coronary for when you're old and grey." He leans back against the door, waiting, so much of his time spent waiting for Derek to come to life.

"Is there a reason you waited until you were home to message me? I could've picked you up."

Stiles shrugs. He feels calmer after giving into the urges of whatever's pulling him towards the forest, loose limbed like after an orgasm, but without the haze clouding his judgement. It's just want, now. Need, sharp and clear.

"I kind of wanted to fuck you, if that's okay."

Derek shifts, uncomfortable, uncrosses his ankles to stand. The kind of power Stiles has over him, the reactions he elicits with just words is intoxicating, beats a wild tattoo through his veins. "I meant it," Derek says, "I'm not going to do that here."

Stiles is aroused, there's no way Derek can't hear his heart beating faster. "But you want to," he says, and Derek draws in a quick breath, gives himself away with an unintentional step forward. "Come here," Stiles says, and Derek obeys, stopping when they're chest to chest and Stiles can see how turned on he is, pupils huge, hands clenched in Stiles's shirt, the sharp breath he takes when Stiles leans in to nudge their noses together. Intimacy, then, that's what Derek craves.

Stiles grins into the kiss, pulls back to whisper into Derek's ear, "No fucking then. I've got a better idea."

Derek doesn't object as Stiles peels his clothes off, with his hands mapping Derek's body and the mattress springs groaning beneath their weight. He almost tears the sheets when Stiles tongues into his asshole, and comes from that and two fingers twisted inside with a warning sob.

As it turns out, Derek is just as bad at keeping his promises.

*

He's always been good at bad habits. Two, three times tops, doing something stupid until it sticks.

Derek is still there in the morning. Stiles doesn't know how this is supposed to go, if he's allowed to wake Derek up so he'll leave, if that's something he would've done a year ago. The old him would've wanted Derek to stay, probably, considering the stuff he's collected that Derek's left around his house, the hints Lydia drops in conversations that are always followed by, "Thank god for Cora, I'm so over man baggage."

He gets ready for school, leaves Derek sleeping to go downstairs, eats breakfast with his dad, downs a handful of painkillers, drives to school on autopilot.

Allison passes him in the hall, quickening her pace to catch up with him. She looks sad, downright miserable, and Stiles can't help the pang of delight that she's suffering, too. She doesn't get out whatever she wants to say before Stiles slams his locker door, hunches his shoulders up, walks the other way. They might have trusted each other once, independently of who they were to other people, but Stiles isn't the same guy now. Not to anyone else, not even to himself.

He avoids familiar faces for the rest of the day, head in his Calc notes at lunch, scrubbing a spot of red from his shirt until his fingers are raw, blood clotting on a scab, reflection pale under the fluorescent bathroom lighting, barely flinching at the shadows flickering in his periphery.

Solitude doesn't last long. Lydia snags his arm in the parking lot as soon as he's at his car. "Party at Ethan and Aiden's," she says. Her nails dig into his skin like a bear trap.

Stiles snorts. "Yeah, right, count me out."

She lets him go before he can pull away, rolling her eyes. "It's a truce. They invited everyone, it'd be rude not to show."

"I'm busy that day," he says.

Lydia cocks an eyebrow, impatient. She's got a hand on her hip and everything. "What day?"

"Whatever day their party is." He turns to his car and she rounds on him, hand on the door to keep it closed.

"Not everything is about what you want. Come back to the waking world sometime, Stiles." She gives him a pointed look and turns away, hair flipped over her shoulder, end of discussion, doesn't look back as Stiles calls out, "I _am_ awake!"

He slams the car door after he's in, grips the steering wheel and drives, too fast, pedal pushed to the floor, trees speeding by as he loosens his control.

*

Derek is steady under Stiles's hands, calm in a way Stiles could never be, medication-riddled, jumping out of his skin at noises no one else acknowledges, head so full of noise and patterns that he can't think. It gets quiet when he crowds Derek against a door, a table, any flat surface, pressing bruises into Derek's skin that fade seconds later no matter how rough Derek lets him be. Derek is always careful where he puts his mouth, places no one else can see, soft and inviting, gentle even when Stiles pushes him to his knees. It's almost too much, Stiles strung out and exhausted every time, trying to break something that's already broken.

He thinks about it with a hand around himself when he's alone, vivid images of Derek fucking into him, hard, biting into Stiles's shoulder and drawing blood, hand slick around his cock, railing into him until he's sore and aching.

*

Reflections are the only thing that doesn't lie. The sight of himself in a mirror, a cracked window, the mug shot the officer snaps of him, all tell a story that isn't pretty, but it's real. He spends three hours in a cell that stinks of bleach masking piss, until his father unlocks the door, furious.

They drive home in the cruiser. Stiles's Jeep is wrapped around a pole, trashed only a month after getting it fixed, no way to claim insurance with his breath topping the legal limit. The Sheriff fumes the whole ride home about drunk driving charges, underage drinking, speeding, property damage, disorderly conduct while Stiles's head swims and he chokes back the urge to vomit twice in one night. He almost makes a joke, if his dad would be more comfortable with him in the backseat, stops himself before he can cause any more damage.

When they get home, he waits an hour before sneaking out of his bedroom window. He's still drunk enough he doesn't feel the impact of falling the last four feet to the ground, doesn't register where he's going or how long it takes before he's outside Derek's building. A shadow moves behind the windows, too dark to make out, but the door is unlocked when he gets upstairs and the streetlights frame Derek's silhouette against the windows.

Derek's apartment is a cemetery of people he doesn't talk about, things he never got the chance to do. He tells Stiles secrets, sometimes, when they're spent and tangled up in each other, and Stiles listens just so he has something to use for next time.

"You should fuck me," Stiles says, slurs, stumbling on the last step.

"You're drunk," Derek points out, like it matters. Stiles couldn't give a shit, but Derek probably does, too far sold on the idea of being a good guy to take advantage, or believe that Stiles might want him to. "You're drinking and you're pushing everyone away and now--what? You're here to make yourself feel better?"

Stiles laughs, sharp, startling himself into a hiccough. "That's pretty perceptive, didn't know you could be so--" He trails off, distracted by the blankets spread out on the couch, the pile of Derek's shirts and underwear shoved into the corner. He slumps onto it, legs open, head tipped back.

"Go home, Stiles," Derek says, too softly to matter. He's always been terrible at giving orders that Stiles was going to ignore anyway. Derek was his age, not too long ago, broken hearted, hating himself, fucking the pain away. Derek steps closer with his hand out, moonlight hitting his face to highlight his scowl, the set of his jaw, the cheekbones Stiles wants to bite.

"If I left, you wouldn't be able to fuck me." Stiles slaps his hand away, head feeling light enough to detach from his body, stomach heavy with alcohol. "Come on, Derek, I know you want more. You imagined it, right? What it'd feel like. So good, I could make it so good for you." He wraps his foot around Derek's calf muscle, not enough leverage to pull him closer, but just for contact.

Derek lifts his lip up in a sneer that doesn't reach his eyes, does nothing to deaden the color on his cheeks. "You don't know me that well," he says. His tone suggests it's aimed to hurt, to wound Stiles as if he could be wounded, like there's anything Derek could say that he wouldn't go back on. His resolve has nothing on Stiles's persuasion, and they both know it.

It only takes Stiles leaning forward to grab his hand for Derek to give in. After that, everything blurs into a montage of images and sensations, Stiles pushing Derek back onto the floor, clothes coming off, naked skin sliding together, panting open-mouthed with their faces an inch apart, rutting like horny teenagers, like animals. Derek gets three fingers into him but that's it, finds Stiles's prostate to tease out his orgasm, flips them so Stiles's back arches off the floor, pulled tight as a bow string. Stiles passes out after Derek empties himself, the image of his face pained and vulnerable burned into the back of Stiles's eyelids, only a reflection of the real thing.

*

The music is loud enough that Stiles can hear it down the block. Whatever enthusiasm he could muster on the walk over dwindles to nothing when he gets there, a big townhouse on the outskirts Stiles went to on a stakeout with Scott, both of them failing to be inconspicuous when Deucalion stepped out, glasses glinting in the sun, hands clasped in front of him like a welcoming host. Stiles almost turns back around before Lydia spots him, glass of something in her hand, heels aerating the lawn.

She gives him a once over as she approaches, looking almost approving of the only clothes he could find that hadn’t recently been used to wipe come from his stomach.

“Nice to see you, Stiles.” Her dress is cut so low her breasts are almost falling out. Stiles needs a drink.

Cora’s standing under the porch light, holding a beer that she tips up in greeting, her gaze hard. Stiles doesn’t see her at Derek’s but Cora’s books were on the coffee table he tripped over on his way out last time, her make up cluttering the bathroom counter, and they’ve never used Derek’s bed since they started having sex, but Stiles assumed it was so Derek didn’t have anything else to regret. It never crossed his mind that Derek’s bed was another thing he’d given up.

Lydia takes his hand and leads him inside where the noise is deafening, the press of bodies unbearable while sober, and they lose each other almost immediately. All the people around him look like an invitation to a massacre, dressed in their gold themed costumes and spilling solo cups, just begging to be murdered for the sake of Lydia’s next case. He finds a less crowded spot near the kegs, snags a bottle of whiskey, unopened, that burns all the way down his throat and settles like syrup in his stomach.

Allison passes by him, trailing Isaac--who catches Stiles’s eye, almost stops before Stiles stares him down, daring him to. Stiles doesn’t have the advantage of being a werewolf, or even seniority in the pack since Isaac bumped his way up to Scott’s right hand, and would never sink so low to beg scraps from the table and Isaac knows it, edges away with a cautious look over his shoulder for Scott who follows a second later when Allison and Isaac blend into the crowd.

Scott bleeds heat and apologies Stiles can barely hear over the music, waves away with the hand holding the whiskey. He gets through a good portion of it before Scott says, “I haven’t seen Derek much, lately.”

“You think I have?” Stiles doesn’t bother to raise his voice.

“Yeah, I think you have.” Scott lays it out there and waits a beat for Stiles to explain himself. “What gives? You--are you guys together now?”

“Is it any of your business?” It’s not the whiskey that turns his voice sharp, mean, but it makes it easier to forget why he would share anything like this.

“Yeah, actually, it is. The pack doesn’t work if we’re not a team, Stiles, if we can’t put up a united front.”

“Is that what this is?” Stiles gestures around the room to where Aiden is standing on a table taking shots, Ethan and Danny and Kira cheering him on, Allison and Isaac watching the action from a corner, looking out of their element and anxious about it. “An alliance? My memory isn’t so great anymore but I distinctly remember Ethan and Aiden trying to kill us, succeeding in killing Boyd. We’re not a pack, Scott, we’re a fucking disaster waiting to happen.”

Scott glowers, jaw clenched. “It’s the best I can do. We can’t afford to be at each other’s throats, you should know it never goes well.”

“Neither does siding with the enemy,” Stiles says, his voice gone harsh, rough. “Heard from Deucalion lately? Can’t imagine why he’d keep you in the dark, since you two are so close.”

Scott stands, pushes his chair back with a scrape. “I’m not doing this. Come to the meetings, Stiles. Stop pushing everyone away.”

He leaves with a satisfying huff that sounds too good in Stiles’s ears. He’s drunk already and on an empty stomach, he’ll have nothing to throw up later except the booze. He weaves his way further into the house, tripping over nothing, pushing through the congregation on the stairs until he finds a door to hide behind, a room that’s lit by soft lamplight and already occupied.

Cora lets out a moan around the flesh of her hand between her teeth. She’s spread out on the bed, shirt unbuttoned to show the smooth expanse of her stomach, her bra, and naked from the waist down. Lydia sits back on her heels, wiping at the juices on her chin visible even from where Stiles slumps back against the door. Lydia’s hair is messy like someone was raking their fingers through it, make-up smudged black under her eyes. She hikes her dress up higher as she kneels up between Cora’s legs, high heels making indents in the bed sheets.

They turn to him at the same time, Cora annoyed, Lydia amused.

“Sorry,” Stiles says, presses a palm to the flash of pain in his forehead as a laugh erupts from his mouth. It’s a cruel fucking joke that Derek won’t fuck him but he has to walk in on this.

“Do you need something?” Cora asks. Stiles supposes he’d be annoyed too if someone interrupted him like this, and he’s going to move just as soon as he can make his legs work properly.

Lydia slides a hand up Cora’s calf muscle, a soothing gesture that has Cora relaxing back on her elbows. He shrugs in answer, averting his gaze as he reaches behind him for the handle, doesn’t find it before Lydia shoves him against the door, hands on his face to angle him into a kiss that tastes bitter like--

“Come on, Stiles, kiss me,” Lydia breaths into his mouth, her lips wet and soft, teeth nipping at his chin.

He does, open-mouthed and unpracticed. For all the time he spends kissing Derek, he already knows how it’s supposed to go, what it leads up to. With Lydia, he’s out of his depth.

She takes the initiative for him, presses his free hand to her waist as she kisses him, drags it up the material of her dress until he takes over and cups the plump weight of her breast in his palm. She breaks the kiss to sigh softly.

He pulls back to take another swig of the bottle, head already flooded with alcohol and arousal, dick heavy and swelling in his jeans as Lydia leads him to the bed. He knows the difference between what’s real and what isn’t, between the jagged spikes of fear when he hallucinates and the hazy, soft-edged decadence of indulging in casual sex, one of the only things that can get him out of his head and unafraid. Cora opens her knees for him to sit between, unashamed at the spread of herself, wet and inviting. Stiles’s mouth waters, tongue thick between his teeth. When he glances to Lydia for confirmation, she’s sitting with her legs tucked under her, would be the picture of demure if her mouth wasn’t swollen, make-up ruined, strap fallen off her shoulder.

“Go on,” she prompts, hand at the back of his neck to tug at the short strands of hair, just this side of painful. “Cora only bites when you ask nicely.”

Cora opens her mouth in a grin, rows of sharp teeth visible in the low light, eyebrows raised. “Make it good, Stilinski.” He licks his lips and leans in. It’s a test, but he’s faced worse.

He licks a stripe up the folds of Cora’s cunt and is rewarded with a soft gasp. The mechanics are basically the same as whenever he and Derek make it to a horizontal surface. He does it again, licking further inside to taste the bitter tang of her, inhaling the mixture of come and sweat and perfume, fluid spilling onto his chin, Lydia’s hand on the base of his skull to guide him.

“Suck,” Lydia says, and he does, this part he knows, lips around Cora’s clit and hands under her thighs to pull her closer. She goes easily, falling apart so well, breath hitching, thighs pressed to his ears and muffling Lydia’s directions. He noses in farther, wants to tell her how well she’s doing, how much he likes it, forgoes words and presses his tongue in, sucking until her back arches off the bed and she pushes his face away.

His heart is beating hard as he lowers her legs, stroking the underside of her knee in a way he hopes is comforting and not condescending. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and she sighs contentedly, teeth dull and brown eyes crinkled. Lydia releases the grip on his neck to slide up the bed, all feline grace and arched back, kissing Cora as she slips two fingers into where Stiles’s mouth was. Stiles pops the button on his jeans to release the pressure, but doesn’t do anything else, he’s just a prop in this and Lydia frowns on poor etiquette.

Cora breaks the kiss to giggle, her whole body flushed red and dotted with sweat, looking younger than Stiles has seen of her. “Stop it, I’m sore,” she whispers, turns it into a gasp as Lydia crooks her fingers, pulls them out to suck them into her mouth.

“I didn’t want to miss out,” Lydia says, despite the dried come on her face, glances over her shoulder at Stiles. “Are you sticking around?”

He wipes his hands on his jeans, wishing he’d worn less layers for how warm the room is. “Sure.”

“Great,” Cora says, “because Lydia needs to get fucked, hard." Lydia gives Cora a look but doesn't argue.

She's not gentle with him and he's grateful for it. Derek wont fuck him and that hurts worse than whatever Stiles is trying to mask with sex. Derek's worried he's teaching Stiles the same bad habits he was taught, to fill the hole inside with a warm body, a willing mouth. Except Derek's not willing, he's never said so, and Stiles is seventeen and too young to know the difference. Derek snatches the condoms from his hand every time, goes to his knees or lets Stiles push him around, so maybe he never learnt the difference either.

He and Cora get Lydia's dress over her head, stripping her together until she takes over, wrestling Stiles around like a prop until he's where she wants--sitting up against the headboard, Lydia's thighs bracketing his, skin rosy and warm. She slips a condom on him with practiced efficiency and lowers herself until he's inside.

Even the feel of her catching against the head of his dick is so good he has to close his eyes and fist the sheets to stop himself bucking up. If he can control himself with Derek's mouth on him, he can control himself for this, the way Lydia lifts up to slide back down without letting him catch his breath, tits bouncing with the movement, hands clenched in his hair.

"Definitely not a virgin," he says, voice catching.

"You're not a virgin if you can last more than three minutes," Cora says from over Lydia's shoulder.

Stiles breathes out against her breastbone, kisses the flesh raised in goose bumps. "Start timing."

Lydia shushes him silent, her face creased in concentration, chest pushed out to make it easy for him to suck her nipple into his mouth, tease it until he feels like he's neglecting the other one, drawing her soft gasps into the space between them. Cora pulls Lydia's hair back through her fingers, exposing just that much more skin for Stiles to put his mouth on. He feels a hand between them, Cora's knuckles grazing his stomach, and follows them with his own to where she's stroking Lydia's clit, wrenching the kind of noises out of her that Stiles used to dream about. She fits snugly in his lap, her curves seem to be made for his hands, he can fit them around her waist until his fingers are almost touching, splayed out over her hips, thighs, ribcage, grazing the underside of her breasts.

Sweat drips into his eyes and it’s enough to distract him from the way Lydia clenches as she comes, hot warm pressure like suction, bearing down, whole body shaking with it, mouth open on a gasp. Cora looks pleased, drawing her fingers away, but Stiles doesn't let it get to him like he wants to, head swimming, close enough he can feel the pressure building in his spine.

He draws Lydia closer to him with an arm around her waist, flipping her on her back and rolling onto their sides, still inside her.

Lydia's cheeks are flushed, eyes wide and surprised like Stiles feels. Her chest and neck are peppered with marks in the shape of Stiles's lips, nothing permanent, nothing Cora can't write over later with her own.

Stiles thrusts experimentally, hand on the small of Lydia's back. "Is this okay?"

"Yeah," she breathes, "yes, fuck me, do it."

He's about to obey when Cora stops them, shirt and bra tossed aside with the rest of their clothes, murmurs, "Here, let me, like this," graciously waits for Stiles to pull out before she rolls Lydia onto her other side, back bared for Stiles to press against, slots himself back in with her knee pushed up to her chest.

The angle is better this way, sends a spike of heat down his spine, his muscles drawing up in anticipation. He only makes it a few more minutes, face pressed between Lydia's shoulder blades, licking at the beads of sweat, salty but clean, less bitter probably than how her cunt would taste if he got the chance to, lay back and pull her up until she straddled his face, choked him on it, and he comes with that image burned through the haze in his mind.

Cora and Lydia are still kissing when he pulls out, ties the condom and tosses it, ready to drop until the post-orgasm haze lifts and he's restless again.

The whole room stinks of sex. There should probably be a limit on how often things spiral out of control, how quickly. Lydia rolls Cora until she's on top, one leg over and Cora's other one hiked up around Lydia's waist to rut against each other, tits brushing as they finish each other off.

Stiles pushes himself off the bed, too busy with pulling on his clothes to listen to them come in succession, Cora first, then Lydia a few seconds later. The alcohol and arousal wears off as soon as he's out the door and free of the stifling heat, leaving him with a film of sweat and fluid on his skin, dick chafing in his jeans. He swallows past the lump in his throat with the blurred images of the last forty-five minutes replaying in his mind to cover the emptiness in his chest, the dissatisfaction of ice sliding through his veins.

He barely makes it to the porch before the whiskey forces its way back up his throat, burning the taste of Cora and Lydia from his tongue.

*

The Sheriff doesn't talk to him for the four days it takes his anger to subside and then breaking his curfew is just another reason he can’t be trusted. It's a nice break from the disappointment and exasperation tempering all of their interactions, not having to leave his room or make himself eat with his dad counting each mouthful. Lydia leaves him a voice mail about another poisoning, three more victims dumped at the scene before whatever killed them moved on, her voice steady and authoritative. Stiles goes to school, goes to work, does stupid things like crush rocks between his teeth, makes a candy bracelet out of his medication, rakes scratched into his arms he doesn't notice until they bleed, finds half a pack of menthols and smokes it all in an afternoon, all with the same mindless detachment. He makes the pictures and articles he cuts out of newspapers and magazines, the diagrams in his chemistry books, into a collage on his bedroom wall, words bleeding off the pages, the sweat of his palms turning the paper dirty, yellow.

He's spread out on the back porch one afternoon with the sun in his eyes, staring out into the forest that lines the property, when he sees movement through the trees. It's nothing more than a shadow, indeterminably real or a hallucination, and Stiles takes off after it.

It's too fast for him but he doesn't care, breaking into a sprint, feet slipping on the underbrush, clawing his way back up with ragged breaths before he loses sight of it. The figure flits between the trees, slowing down for him to catch up but always too far away to see clearly. His body aches with the need to keep moving, his mind stupid with it, intensity growing until the creature is only a few feet away and then it turns into a need to flee. The switch flips so quickly he slides to a halt, shoes turning his tracks into a cartoonish slide.

The forest is quiet and the creature taunts him from one side of his periphery, disappears behind a tree only to turn up to his right in the next breath, in front of him, behind him, twenty feet away, fifty feet, ten feet. His heartbeat sounds like a countdown in his ears.

He spins around, anticipating an attack, turns until he loses his bearing, no landmarks but trees and sky. The figure appears in his eye line, humanoid, but--grey skin, a swirling mass of blue and black that hurts his eyes to look at directly, cloaked in a robe that leaves its disfigured face uncovered, an imitation of Jennifer Blake. Another one steps out behind it, another one to the left this time, doubling themselves until he's surrounded.

He stumbles backwards a few paces and trips, sprawls in the dirt on his back and suffocating in the fear that he's going to die, and it won’t be on his own terms.

He keeps his eyes open for the second it takes them to descend, puckered skin and gaping mouths, until he can't see anything, his own screams almost loud enough to drown out the growl that cuts through the air. He keeps kicking his legs, railing against the strong grip on his arms even as the suffocation dies down, only opening his eyes when he hears a voice shouting his name.

Derek's eyes are blue, his mouth full of sharp teeth, but his hands are human and sans claws, holding Stiles down as he catches his breath. Footsteps run past them, a flash of steel and barked voices, but neither of them look.

Stiles scrambles back out of Derek's reach. A high pitched shriek reaches them, and then it's quiet.

He leans his head back against a tree, breathing until his heart rate slows. Derek is still in the same spot, crouched on the balls of his feet, his expression wounded. When his eyes return to their normal color they're bloodshot, the way Scott's did the last time he cried about Allison, holed up in Derek's loft for the two weeks he'd been gone.

"You ran off again," Derek says, tone accusing.

Stiles shrugs. He's so close to the heart of the forest, everything is calm, his body and mind dialed back to zero in a way he isn't, usually, not in the way that lasts longer than it takes to come or wake up covered in sweat. Derek looks at Stiles like he's in pain, and Stiles doesn't know what to do with it. He should--feel guilty, maybe, sorry, if he's causing it.

"If you're going to lecture me, don't bother. Yeah, it was stupid, going into the woods by myself, running after ghosts, whatever. Lesson learned." He resists the urge to storm off, if only because the call of the forest is so strong.

Derek narrows his eyes. "You saw ghosts? Is that why you were so afraid? You went after them."

Stiles flinches. "I'm not afraid."

"You don't have to lie." Derek sighs, scrubs a hand over his face. It's such a human thing to do. "I can smell it across town. I--you're broadcasting so loudly to me, I don't understand why--"

He's interrupted by another scream of pain that's quieter this time, farther away. Derek stands and brushes dirt off his jeans. Everything about him when they're not touching puts Stiles on edge, has him lashing out defensively because Derek is so raw. Derek's heart is bleeding all over his last clean v-neck, and Stiles would be embarrassed for him, if Derek couldn't smell it.

"You can cut the Prince Charming act. It's not that cute."

Derek stares right into him like he's looking for Stiles's soul and finding him lacking. "Right. Next time I'll leave you to get poisoned." Stiles misses when his threats were real. The problem is now Derek's invested; he let himself start caring about the people that hurt him the most, became dependent on craving love from the ones that couldn't give it to him, and now he can't stop.

"That'd be good, thanks." Stiles leans his head back and closes his eyes. He listens to the sound of dirt being shoveled, voices talking, dark and hushed. Derek's presence is a wall of white noise, static electricity crackling only meters away.

"I'm going to check on the others," Derek says, after a pause adding, "Don't disappear again. I'll find you if you do."

He probably means it as a threat, but it doesn't come out that way.

Stiles opens his eyes to Derek's retreating back. As the static fades, Stiles's awareness of his body returns, aching limbs and cut open hands, bruised shoulder, claw marks in his arms that didn't puncture the skin. Even after all this time his luck never runs out.

*

His birthday happens and then suddenly he's seventeen. His dad makes him breakfast. Scott makes him a cake with his name sprawled in icing across it. Lydia makes him a protective charm. He doesn't feel any different--trying to catalog each of his reactions with cold detachment, as if they're happening to someone else--but he probably wouldn't know even if he was.

He tucks the charm into his wallet, forgets about it, and doesn't see Derek for nearly two weeks until they're staring at each other through the glass wall of Beacon Hills' only coffee shop.

It's pretty anticlimactic, as far as accidental reunions go.

Stiles sits at a table outside, kicks out the other chair for Derek when he steps outside with a coffee in each hand, bell jingling. Derek brandishes one of the coffees with a downcast, "Happy birthday." The chair squeaks under his weight when he sits.

"This better not be mostly froth and have, like, a million different flavors of syrup." Stiles opens the lid to find it black.

"It wouldn't kill you to enjoy a real coffee," Derek says, loftily.

"Actually, I did die a little inside the last time we came here. True story, I'm still recovering."

Derek rolls his eyes. "Your taste buds are already dead, and that's the only acceptable reason you'd drink your coffee black and that sweet."

Stiles catches the handful of sugar packets Derek throws at his head, and just like that, the mood plummets. Derek glances at his hands like he's having trouble looking Stiles in the face. It makes him feel like he's about to get dumped. "I, um. Sorry I missed it. Your birthday."

Stiles shrugs. "You'd be sorry even if you didn't." Scott had taken him to the first club that didn’t check IDs, where Stiles had downed eight overpriced drinks in half an hour and ended the night passed out in a toilet cubicle, knees raw and sticky from sucking off a guy whose only discerning feature was the barbed wire tattoo across his neck. "It wasn't what you'd call exciting. Didn't know you cared, anyway."

Derek glares at him. "Of course I care, I'm not soulless." He clamps his mouth shut, looking like he's actually biting his tongue.

Stiles laughs. "Right."

"I didn't mean--"

"It's fine," Stiles says. "It'd make sense, wouldn't it? You know, in the same way that everything makes sense, which is to say, it really doesn't." He pours the sugar packets into his coffee. He's been missing a lot of things for a so long, he's started to make a list.

Derek looks uncomfortable and changes the subject. "So, did you go away, or something?"

Stiles humors him. "Away?"

"Yeah, out of town."

"No? Did you think I was avoiding you? Because I'm pretty sure you're the one that's avoiding me, if we're getting technical."

Derek's eyebrows smooth out as a look of realization dawns on his face. "Then you did something. A spell."

"A spell?" Stiles repeats. "For what--to get you to leave me alone?"

"Did you?" Derek presses, his hand a tight fist on the table, the other crushing his coffee.

"Of course not, dude. I'm not a fucking wizard."

Derek digs his fingernails into the table. "It doesn't make sense." Stiles opens his mouth to say something, since he's pretty well versed in losing his mind, before Derek levels him with a look that's almost pleading. "You were everywhere before, I could always--but then you were gone, I can't tell where you are. You're sitting right in front of me and I can't tell if you're real. You don't smell like anything. I can't hear your heartbeat."

The words sound like they should impact him in some way, like all the other important things that don't feel like they're happening to him. Stiles reaches across the table for Derek's hand and sees the blood running a trail down his wrist, the stain on his shirt cuff.

"There," he says, closing his hand around Derek's fingers. "Does that feel real?"

Derek sags forward in his chair, bowing his head to hide the anguish on his face. Stiles presses his other hand to Derek's cheek and traces the wetness there with his thumb, feels the surging heat of life beneath his fingers. When Derek squeezes his fingers tighter, Stiles's chest clenches around an ache that's more than the lack of depth, of soul, the aches of his body and spirit the nemeton caused. Something he didn't realize was there until he reached out.

After a minute, Stiles clears his throat. "Take me back to yours," he says, and Derek nods.

They walk the six blocks with their hands intertwined for the contact, Derek's hand sweaty and Stiles's cold, fingers numb. The loft is quiet and cool and empty, spread open and inviting for all the things Stiles didn't get to do before.

Derek lays him out on the bed and touches him like he's made of porcelain, of burnt wood ready to crumble to ash. He picks apart Stile's layers with patience more than intent, each movement careful, uses his tongue to trace the half-healed cuts, bruises like maps of undiscovered continents, dirt and dried blood caked over his skin. With each scrape of Derek's tongue and the soft mouth that follows, Stiles begins to loosen, sunk back into the covers and breathing in the scent of detergent. He closes his eyes against the warring urges of exhaustion and arousal, wanting Derek to take care of him and hurt him, too, push him around like Derek used to when there was more of Stiles to rage against, when Stiles was more.

Derek pauses as he crouches over Stiles, looking more composed than Stiles has seen him in months. His face is fuller, rounder after settling down, a harsh contrast to what Stiles sees in the mirror each morning. He brings Stiles's arm to his mouth and licks the drying blood there until his tongue runs red and Stiles's arm is clean, dotted with gravel rash and scratch marks and puckered burns, proof he can't be gentle with himself.

Derek trails his mouth along each mark until he reaches Stiles's shoulder. It could almost be a ritual, the kind of grooming between wolves in the wild, if it wasn't for the heat in his eyes, his breath sweet and hot against Stiles's skin. Derek's hands are forgiving like they were in the forest when the djinn fled and left Stiles cold, thrashing in the dirt, feeling poison shoot through him when there was none. Now, Stiles is loose-limbed and at peace with the world, draped in a fog that makes thinking hard and death seem a more comfortable choice than a life spent running scared.

Derek places a hand over Stiles's heart like he wants to reach in and pull out the darkness, past the racks of knives Stiles's ribs have turned into and the shriveled sacks of lung. "I'm sorry," he says, voice soft and forgiving. "I never should--we have to stop. This."

Stiles pushes his fingers through Derek's scalp and relishes the conflict on his face. "We're pretty terrible for each other," Stiles says, conceding. "I mean, we fucked things up before they even began."

The flutter of Derek's eyelashes across his cheeks makes Stiles's heart skip. Derek's always been more fragile than he lets on, better at self-preservation than anyone gives him credit for. It makes sense he'd be the one to end it, with words this time, instead of violence.

"Don't make this into a joke," Derek says.

"I'm not. If this is the last time--"

"It is."

Stiles nods. "Okay. Then fuck me."

Derek raises himself up to study the certainty in Stiles's expression, still pressed together, touching in all the places Stiles feels raw. Their bodies used to be atoms, chaos interacting, and one day they'll be fertilizing the forest bed. They don't have time to be romantic about it.

"I might hurt you," Derek says, honest and ashamed. Just the thought is enough to make Stiles's heart beat faster under Derek's hand.

"I want you to." His words fall like dynasties from his mouth. He can't help being honest either.

Derek isn't gentle this time. He pushes his tongue into Stiles's mouth with the same half-crazed desperation as the first night, and Stiles is grateful, his blood pumps through his veins and it’s his own.

Stiles pushes back, nails in Derek's spine, teeth in his shoulder, tearing, feeling the hard line of Derek's cock against his own, the sweat on his tongue. The fog in his mind makes seeing impossible beyond the pinpricks of light in his vision and the expanse of Derek's mending flesh. His back arches with the pleasure of it.

"Please," Stiles says. Over the sound of wood splintering, Derek's voice breaks out, saying, "Okay, okay."

**Author's Note:**

> happy 3b, everyone


End file.
